In N.C., terror arrests bewilder neighbors

Rare because he and his family were Muslims in this quiet rural subdivision where the denominations generally run from Baptist to Presbyterian. But also rare for his intensity.

“How many Christians you see standing in the yard praying five times a day?’’ asked Jeremy Kuhn, 20, who lives across the street. “They just believed more than anyone else.’’

But to the disbelief of Kuhn, the federal authorities say Boyd and two of his sons took their convictions beyond religious faith and into domestic terrorism. They were among seven men charged on Monday with supporting violent jihad movements in foreign countries, including Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, and Pakistan. An eighth man was still being sought in the case, said a spokeswoman for federal prosecutors in Raleigh, about 20 miles north.

The men are charged with stockpiling automatic weapons and traveling abroad numerous times to participate in jihadist movements. There is no indication in the indictment that they were planning attacks in the United States, though prosecutors said they had practiced military tactics this summer on private property in a rural county near the Virginia border.

Their plans apparently involved a suicide attack, according to an e-mail Boyd sent in 2008 to another defendant, Hysen Sherifi, about dying as a martyr.

Besides Boyd, 39, the indictment names his sons Zakariya, 20, and Dylan, 22; Anes Subasic, 33; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; Ziyad Yaghi, 21; and Hysen Sherifi, 24. All are US citizens except Sherifi, who is from Kosovo and has legal residence in the United States. Detention hearings for the men are set for tomorrow.

Boyd, the son of a Marine, is a convert to Islam, and received training from Islamic radicals in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the indictment said.

Prosecutors said much of the activity took place over the last three years, citing coded conversations among the defendants, exchanges of cash, numerous gun purchases, and a Kalashnikov demonstration in Boyd’s living room.

Boyd, the central figure in the indictment, is also charged with lying to federal agents in the summer of 2007 about his reasons for a trip to Israel. According to the indictment, he and several other defendants had intended to join violent jihadists in the Palestinian territories, though the trip was ultimately unsuccessful.

It was the second trip to Israel mentioned in the indictment. Boyd is said to have taken his son Dylan to Gaza to meet jihadists in March 2006, though that, too, was apparently unsuccessful.

Highlighted in the indictment, but not part of the charges, was a period that authorities say Boyd spent with his brother in Afghanistan and Pakistan from 1989 to 1992, training with and supporting fighters who were trying to overthrow the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.

Federal law enforcement officials in Washington said that the men charged on Monday were not seen as serious terrorist threats to the United States or US interests abroad, and that there were no indications of ties to Al Qaeda or other militant groups. But the officials said there was concern that the group was amassing a sizable number of powerful automatic weapons, given the elder Boyd’s record as a foreign fighter.

Neighbors were startled, even angered by the arrests, which they learned about only when federal agents, some carrying assault weapons, swarmed over the lawn of the Boyds’ cream-colored two-story house.

The house, with a Ford Bronco in the driveway and a swimming pool in the back, looks like any other in the quiet subdivision, and neighbors said the Boyds were generally no different than anyone else, other than being nicer than average. Boyd ran a company installing drywall, for which his two older sons often worked. The Boyds had two younger sons, one of whom was killed in a car accident two years ago, and a daughter.

Prosecutors said Daniel Boyd had stopped attending local mosques this year because of “ideological differences’’ and had begun meeting for Friday prayer services in his home.

The Boyds had the usual interactions with the neighbors - tool swapping, rides to school - and other than a day when the house was egged, which neighbors attributed to their religion, their faith did not seem to be an issue.

“We never really had a problem with it,’’ said Anthony Perfetto, 15, who used to have after-school snacks at the Boyd home when he was in elementary school. “All they’d say about it was like they had to go pray, and that’s about it.’’

All of which has left neighbors wondering whether there was some kind of mistake.

“I don’t believe any of this,’’ Kuhn said. “And it’s going to take a whole lot of evidence to convince me otherwise.’’